Wednesday, June 3, 2015

quasigrecian thoughts

1. I'm seriously out of it in the pop-culture news. (Remember that I don't watch TV news or talk programs: when I do see them, in waiting rooms or in clips on The Daily Show - I do watch that - I can feel my brain melting by the second.) Consequently the story of Caitlyn Jenner is passing me by. I was never exactly sure who Bruce Jenner was, anyway - yes, I could look it up, but it's the fact that I'd have to do so, plus I'd just immediately forget again - and, like Mark Evanier, I'm already at the point where I don't care whether some celebrity has had a sex change or not.

2. I also feel terribly out of it regarding this Duggar sex abuse case. At least the name "Bruce Jenner" had been vaguely familiar; I had literally never heard of the Duggars before this scandal broke, and was surprised to learn they'd been TV stars for a decade already. At least I'd vaguely heard of Honey Boo-Boo before that became a scandal, although I hadn't been sure who - or, for that matter, what - that was either.

3. Speaking of Mark Evanier, at last here's somebody speaking in favor of two spaces between sentences. I link with enthusiasm. I really don't understand why anyone thinks that a sentence beginning with the name "St. Louis" should have no more space before the "St." than after it, and if you're going to adjust proportionality by hand, you can just goddam work with two spaces as easily as one, or else run a global search-and-replace to eliminate them if you bloody well care that much.

4. At last, an answer to the question that has baffled the ages! A former Navy chaplain is here to tell you how the existence of same-sex marriage harms his opposite-sex marriage. The problem is, of his seven reasons,
#1 is contentless;
#7 requires you to watch a 28-minute video to get the reason, and while I'm willing to read what he has to say, I'm not willing to watch him rant for 28 minutes (see above, re: television);
#s 2, 3, and 5 are distressed at the tax effects of the increase in the number of marriages (which really isn't very large) and thus all amount to arguing for the elimination of tax benefits of marriage (all marriages, not just same-sex ones) to keep single people's (not opposite-sex married couple's) taxes lower - the harm he's feeling is to his pocketbook, not his marriage;
#4 is about not letting couples adopt if they're unwilling to support a child's LGBT self-identification, and has nothing to do with some other couple being same-sex at all;
and, as for #6, if he doesn't like his church's policies of inclusion, they don't harm his marriage, and he can go join some other, more bigoted church more to his liking. It's a free country. Nobody's making any church marry anyone it doesn't want to.

5. Slightly less baffling. I went to change my smoke detector, and noticed, mounted on the upper wall next to it - we've lived here over seven years, and I couldn't recall ever having paid attention to it before - a box. I removed the cover, and found some electric gadgetry inside that looks as old as the house is. Embossed inside the cover were the words "Model KA-10." Nothing else. I Googled this in hopes of figuring out what the box was, and found suggestions that it is:
1) a battery-operated platform scale for restaurant use;
2) a keyboard amplifier speaker;
3) a remote-controlled model airplane;
4) a 1949-model helicopter;
5) a magnifying glass; or
6) a portable piston air compressor.
Any of which would be very exciting to find mounted on our wall. Ah, Google, how I love you.
In the process of perusing this list, it belatedly occurred to me to remember that I had noticed the box before, and that it is:
7) our doorbell chime.